6 ms·

Do we need more evidence that "Entry-Level" means "poorly paid"?

johnnyfaehell 9y ago
To be fair, I think even the senior levels aren't exactly well paid. According to https://taketheexit.de/ https://taketheexit.de/ 55% of developers feel heavily underpaid and that's something I can believe easily.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Everybody feels underpaid. You earn more money, then you spend more money, then you wish you had more money. I recently doubled my salary, and I still feel underpaid. In reality, I earn above median wage for my age and experience, and live a comfortable life. But we can always do with more cash.
  - chrisper 9y ago
    There is a big difference between having no money and feeling underpaid.
  - johnnyfaehell 9y ago
    There is a difference between wanting more cash and feeling underpaid. The fact the stat says only a percentage of people feel underpaid kinda rules out your statement that "Everybody feels underpaid".
- rifung 9y ago
  Sorry couldn't you elaborate on why you can believe it easily? I feel like people in tech are paid very well so this is a surprise to me. If anything I feel overpaid despite being paid much less than most of my peers
  - johnnyfaehell 9y ago
    The average Developer/Engineer/etc works about 60 hours a week, they work on things that generate millions of dollars. They, for the most part, get paid less than the accountant does. I've literally made a company millions in profit, the entire IT department probably earned less than 10% of the amount of that profit amount. The ROI in IT is extremely high, yet you'll see salespeople whose ROI is much lower making a lot more money. A lot of people will say our salaries being below that of accountants, lawyers, etc is because our barrier of entry is much lower. I believe this not to be true, look at the average job board and you'll see a lot of companies who are literally only looking for seniors. Once you get in, you're fine, but getting in when you don't have the qualifications can be a lot harder. It seems like those industries have spent decades/centuries building prestige into their industries while IT seems to put up with an OK salary with lots of pressure and overtime. For the majority of skilled workers, IT workers are poorly paid. While we make more than the median salary, the amount of skill, effort, the time it takes to become good at the job is a lot higher than those making the median. You then have the culture of overtime. It's not uncommon to see PRs from people at 10 pm, be told you need to work the weekend, for projects that aren't fully defined and/or have months left to go in development. Overall, I feel that as an industry, we've massively undersold ourselves and made top-level execs not fully appreciate the value that we as an industry bring. Nevermind the average person, they completely don't value the industry what so ever. The amount of people who default on Web Agency bills who would never default on any other vendor bill is massive. People wanting an ecommerce website for a few hundred pounds.
    - rifung 9y ago
      > The average Developer/Engineer/etc works about 60 hours a week, they work on things that generate millions of dollars. Hardly anyone I know regularly works 60 hours a week.. Even if I generated a company millions of dollars, that doesn't give any indication of how much they should pay me because it doesn't count for much if a million other people can also generate them the same amount or more. If you feel like you should get paid more then perhaps you should consider switching to a job where you would get paid more? If there are no takers then presumably you don't offer something which is valuable enough that companies are willing to pay the amount you think they should. Of course, I suppose one of the big problems with programmers is that it's very difficult to measure job performance but either way, I have a very hard time complaining about my compensation.
headsoup 9y ago
I personally think there two issues here: a) Expectations of 'Entry-level' actually being greater than 'junior/apprentice' b) Mentors not part of the role Both of these issues have arisen from a lack of willingness to have a long-term view and wanting immediate ROI, which I imagine has come about from the perceived view that staff don't stick around anyway. Set up proper trainee/cadet/apprentice programs, provide mentors and support and these staff will probably a) take the low pay at the start, b) appreciate the learning and support, c) stick around and d) create greater ROI in the end. Seems not to be how business operate now, and I feel it's painfully evident when I observe how many 'experienced' managers there are in charge of things that have no idea what they're doing. They also appear to often actually have no idea what capabilities they require and so just create industry 'roles' with the hope some experienced person will know what to do.
- monocasa 9y ago
  > I imagine has come about from the perceived view that staff don't stick around anyway. And that's because of the decades of employers destroying the relationship between them and labor. I'm never going to see a pension, and there are almost no more apprenticeships. Why should I as an employee invest in my company if the company treats me as a replaceable cog. The lack of employee loyalty can be directly linked to the Reagan-esque destruction of the labor movement, IMO. I have to watch out for myself, and therefore if push comes to shove, my needs are more important than the company's.
- slfnflctd 9y ago
  > lack of willingness to have a long-term view and wanting immediate ROI This is the core of your comment, and the rest of it describes the whole mess more concisely & articulately than nearly anything I've read. It's indisputable that being willing to train less experienced people leads to wasted money in the many cases where it doesn't work out. To those with attention spans longer than 6 months, however, it's equally indisputable that when it's done properly and does work out, it tends to more than make up for all the 'wasted' cases where it did not. There is a ton of untapped, eager talent out there just waiting for a chance. You may have to wade through a lot of duds to get a good hire, but in my view there is no better way to acquire dedicated employees who actually care about the longer term well being of the company.
tanilama 9y ago
If it according to market...It is not
joopxiv 9y ago
I have a competing hypothesis. It seems to me that a lot of people writing the vacancies have too big of an ego to acknowledge the fact that someone without work experience can do the job they've been doing for years (and maybe still are). The seem to have forgotten that they also started without any experience.
- Density 9y ago
  Checks out in my case. I can probably train a horse to do my job and yet they require 2+ years of experience with a B.S. degree for it.

To be fair, I think even the senior levels aren't exactly well paid. According to https://taketheexit.de/ https://taketheexit.de/ 55% of developers feel heavily underpaid and that's something I can believe easily.

toomanybeersies 9y ago
Everybody feels underpaid. You earn more money, then you spend more money, then you wish you had more money. I recently doubled my salary, and I still feel underpaid. In reality, I earn above median wage for my age and experience, and live a comfortable life. But we can always do with more cash.
- chrisper 9y ago
  There is a big difference between having no money and feeling underpaid.
- johnnyfaehell 9y ago
  There is a difference between wanting more cash and feeling underpaid. The fact the stat says only a percentage of people feel underpaid kinda rules out your statement that "Everybody feels underpaid".
rifung 9y ago
Sorry couldn't you elaborate on why you can believe it easily? I feel like people in tech are paid very well so this is a surprise to me. If anything I feel overpaid despite being paid much less than most of my peers
- johnnyfaehell 9y ago
  The average Developer/Engineer/etc works about 60 hours a week, they work on things that generate millions of dollars. They, for the most part, get paid less than the accountant does. I've literally made a company millions in profit, the entire IT department probably earned less than 10% of the amount of that profit amount. The ROI in IT is extremely high, yet you'll see salespeople whose ROI is much lower making a lot more money. A lot of people will say our salaries being below that of accountants, lawyers, etc is because our barrier of entry is much lower. I believe this not to be true, look at the average job board and you'll see a lot of companies who are literally only looking for seniors. Once you get in, you're fine, but getting in when you don't have the qualifications can be a lot harder. It seems like those industries have spent decades/centuries building prestige into their industries while IT seems to put up with an OK salary with lots of pressure and overtime. For the majority of skilled workers, IT workers are poorly paid. While we make more than the median salary, the amount of skill, effort, the time it takes to become good at the job is a lot higher than those making the median. You then have the culture of overtime. It's not uncommon to see PRs from people at 10 pm, be told you need to work the weekend, for projects that aren't fully defined and/or have months left to go in development. Overall, I feel that as an industry, we've massively undersold ourselves and made top-level execs not fully appreciate the value that we as an industry bring. Nevermind the average person, they completely don't value the industry what so ever. The amount of people who default on Web Agency bills who would never default on any other vendor bill is massive. People wanting an ecommerce website for a few hundred pounds.
  - rifung 9y ago
    > The average Developer/Engineer/etc works about 60 hours a week, they work on things that generate millions of dollars. Hardly anyone I know regularly works 60 hours a week.. Even if I generated a company millions of dollars, that doesn't give any indication of how much they should pay me because it doesn't count for much if a million other people can also generate them the same amount or more. If you feel like you should get paid more then perhaps you should consider switching to a job where you would get paid more? If there are no takers then presumably you don't offer something which is valuable enough that companies are willing to pay the amount you think they should. Of course, I suppose one of the big problems with programmers is that it's very difficult to measure job performance but either way, I have a very hard time complaining about my compensation.

headsoup 9y ago

I personally think there two issues here: a) Expectations of 'Entry-level' actually being greater than 'junior/apprentice' b) Mentors not part of the role Both of these issues have arisen from a lack of willingness to have a long-term view and wanting immediate ROI, which I imagine has come about from the perceived view that staff don't stick around anyway. Set up proper trainee/cadet/apprentice programs, provide mentors and support and these staff will probably a) take the low pay at the start, b) appreciate the learning and support, c) stick around and d) create greater ROI in the end. Seems not to be how business operate now, and I feel it's painfully evident when I observe how many 'experienced' managers there are in charge of things that have no idea what they're doing. They also appear to often actually have no idea what capabilities they require and so just create industry 'roles' with the hope some experienced person will know what to do.

monocasa 9y ago
> I imagine has come about from the perceived view that staff don't stick around anyway. And that's because of the decades of employers destroying the relationship between them and labor. I'm never going to see a pension, and there are almost no more apprenticeships. Why should I as an employee invest in my company if the company treats me as a replaceable cog. The lack of employee loyalty can be directly linked to the Reagan-esque destruction of the labor movement, IMO. I have to watch out for myself, and therefore if push comes to shove, my needs are more important than the company's.
slfnflctd 9y ago
> lack of willingness to have a long-term view and wanting immediate ROI This is the core of your comment, and the rest of it describes the whole mess more concisely & articulately than nearly anything I've read. It's indisputable that being willing to train less experienced people leads to wasted money in the many cases where it doesn't work out. To those with attention spans longer than 6 months, however, it's equally indisputable that when it's done properly and does work out, it tends to more than make up for all the 'wasted' cases where it did not. There is a ton of untapped, eager talent out there just waiting for a chance. You may have to wade through a lot of duds to get a good hire, but in my view there is no better way to acquire dedicated employees who actually care about the longer term well being of the company.

tanilama 9y ago

If it according to market...It is not

joopxiv 9y ago

I have a competing hypothesis. It seems to me that a lot of people writing the vacancies have too big of an ego to acknowledge the fact that someone without work experience can do the job they've been doing for years (and maybe still are). The seem to have forgotten that they also started without any experience.

Density 9y ago
Checks out in my case. I can probably train a horse to do my job and yet they require 2+ years of experience with a B.S. degree for it.